Is This the NHL's Zapruder Film?

By

Mike Sielski

Updated March 12, 2012 7:49 p.m. ET

To watch the closing seconds of the Los Angeles Kings' 3-2 win last month over the Columbus Blue Jackets is to see a thrilling sequence of hockey. At the last possible moment, with the score tied, Kings defenseman Drew Doughty snaps the puck past Columbus goaltender Curtis Sanford. The goal wins the game. The crowd thunders.

Most regular-season sports highlights are quickly forgotten, no matter how exciting they may be. But the tape of this Feb. 1 incident has become a platform for conspiracy theories. It has prompted the NHL to implement new rules and could become a major source of embarrassment for the league during the playoffs.

Here's the problem: Just before Doughty takes his shot, the time on the game clock inexplicably freezes for nearly a full second. As the replay clearly shows, time literally stands still with 1.8 seconds to go before the clock starts to scroll down again. If the clock hadn't paused, the shot would have come after the buzzer.

In a blog post written on his team's website the next day, Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson said Columbus's coaches had noticed the stoppage on tape immediately after the game and marched down the hall to inform the referees. Howson wrote that he'd spoken to Colin Campbell, the NHL's senior vice president of hockey operations, who had promised a full investigation.

Because the game was played on the Kings' home ice, Howson expressed suspicion. "It's an amazing coincidence that with the Kings on a power play at Staples Center and with a mad scramble around our net in the dying seconds of the third period of a 2-2 hockey game that the clock stopped for at least one full second," he wrote.

ENLARGE

The game clock stopped with 1.8 seconds left.
NHL

ENLARGE

Doughty's game-winning shot with 0.9 second remaining on the clock.
NHL

After looking into the matter, the NHL said it would let the Kings' win stand. In published comments, Campbell said he believed Doughty's goal should not have counted but chose not to explain how or why the clock stoppage took place. To fix the problem, Campbell announced that the final minute of every NHL game would henceforth be reviewed at the league's video room in Toronto.

In an interview Saturday, Campbell said the NHL considers the case closed. He said any question about whether the result of that game could undercut the integrity of the postseason is "crazy." Howson declined to comment for this article. His blog post about the incident has been removed from the Blue Jackets' website.

But less than a month left in the regular season, the two standings points the Kings collected by beating the Blue Jackets in regulation that night still loom large over the NHL playoffs. With 76 points this season through Sunday, the Kings were currently tied with the Calgary Flames and Colorado Avalanche for the eighth and final postseason berth in the Western Conference. If the Kings were to win the spot by a single point, that controversial goal against Columbus would represent the difference.

"I'm frustrated doubly," said Matt Wagner, a 31-year-old Blue Jackets season-ticket holder who also blogs about the team at the website JacketsCannon.com. "I'm frustrated about the fact that it happened. I'm also frustrated and angry that this seems to have been swept under the rug. It's very difficult to swallow."

Not long after the incident, Kings general manager Dean Lombardi theorized that the clock was responsible for the pause. In an email to media outlets, he said game clocks are designed to recalibrate themselves and that the clock may have slowed simply because it had moved too quickly earlier. "That is not an opinion," he wrote, "that is science."

The theory hasn't held up. Mark Steinkamp, a marketing director for Daktronics, the company that designed the Staples Center timing system, said the clock doesn't recalibrate itself. "Our system was examined and no problems were found with it," Steinkamp said. Lombardi declined to comment. Campbell said Saturday that the NHL did not believe the scoreboard had malfunctioned.

So what did happen that night?

The people who operate the clock at NHL games are part of a small, behind-the-scenes crew that handles off-ice details such as keeping penalty time and determining when goals have been scored. They are employees of the NHL.

Campbell, who conducted the investigation, said the timekeeper who was operating the clock at this game had been "interrogated" over the phone and in person about the situation. He declined to give the person's name. Campbell said the timekeeper denied stopping the clock, even inadvertently.

He said John Tyre, the head of the off-ice officiating crew for Kings games at Staples Center, who was sitting next to the clock operator on Feb. 1, told the league he did not see the timekeeper stop the clock. Tyre declined to comment.

"The individual says 'I did not stop it,' and the crew chief says 'I did not see him stop it,'" Campbell said. He said he was satisfied with the timekeeper's performance and that "It could have been human error" but that the investigation "never determined what it was." Campbell said, "We're not accusing the individual of a problem in L.A."

Campbell said that in the future, the duties of the off-ice crew members at the Staples Center would be rotated to make sure the clock operator isn't always the same person and to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Campbell said the timekeeper who worked the Feb. 1 game has not operated the Staples Center game clock since the league finished its investigation. The Kings have seven home games left on their schedule. Campbell said it's unlikely, but not impossible, that this official would keep time again during the regular season. "We have to revisit that," he said.

With a 32-25-12 record and 13 games left, the Kings have a 35.5% chance of making the playoffs, according to SportsClubStats.com, a website that uses statistics to predict postseason outcomes. Had the Kings lost that game, the site says, their odds would be about 25%.

Because the NHL allowed Doughty's goal to stand, the Colorado Avalanche, which has the same number of standings points as the Kings with one fewer game left to play, has just a 17% chance of reaching the postseason, according to that site's calculations.

"We could be talking about a team not making the playoffs and missing out on millions of dollars in playoff gates," Howson, the Blue Jackets' general manager, wrote on his blog on Feb. 2. "No one can ever convince me that this result does not matter."

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